


make sure you cross the line

by loveclouds



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8632957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveclouds/pseuds/loveclouds
Summary: With graduation just around the corner, Iwaizumi knows he has to gather the courage to really ask Oikawa out.





	

\---

 

By all his hours dedicated to musings, considerations, and sleepless nights, Iwaizumi can only conclude that he’s in love with Oikawa for life. Fucked for life, at such a young age! What a bad joke. 

 

He glances sideways at his best friend, a boy who grew up into a man right before his eyes, before he realized what was really happening. He had once thought they would have the invincibility of youth with them forever; such is youth. He had once thought something would have changed between them by now, some sort of give after all these years of tension, but nothing has. 

 

Such is unrequited love.

 

\---

 

“Remember to hand in your guest reservation forms or your parents aren’t going to have places to sit at graduation!” their homeroom teacher yells over the bell, and Iwaizumi spends an extra two minutes after school rifling through his bag to find it. 

 

“That’s unlike you,” Oikawa comments, thigh bumping his desk, “been getting too distracted by my illuminating presence lately?”

 

“Your face is about to be illuminated by my fist,” Iwaizumi tells him calmly. “Did you turn your form in yet? You only get one grad so your mom is going to bury you alive if she doesn’t get to come sit front row, you realize.”

 

“Oh, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa sings, throwing himself into the chair in front of Iwaizumi’s desk. With unfair feline grace, he settles his crossed arms on the top of his desk, lying himself atop it like it was covered in plush velvet. He rests his head on an arm and tilts it to the side, that painful angle where he’s gazing up at Iwaizumi through his long, dark eyelashes, a curling smile on his lips. Iwaizumi sighs, willing it to not be wistful. “I’m touched you want to look after me even though you can’t keep your own life together. Good thing we’re both going to Tokyo for university or else you may really die without me!”

 

“You don’t know that I’m going to keep being your friend once we get to Tokyo,” Iwaizumi points out, leaning in until his face is just centimeters from Oikawa’s. Uncertainty creeps into Oikawa’s expression at the same speed as a pink flush and Iwaizumi smiles at him. Oikawa’s face goes from pink to red. 

 

“Mean, Iwa-chan. I want to be your friend forever...”

 

Iwaizumi pulls back quickly, averting his eyes. It hurts to look at him for too long these days. “I’m just messing with you, don’t take it so seriously,” he says, reaching a hand into Oikawa’s hair. He was planning on ruffling it to mess it up, something playful, but he runs his fingers through it instead. He smooths his palm across to the back of Oikawa’s head, mesmerized by the soft locks, wrapping the gently curling strands around his fingertips before pulling away. Oikawa’s breath hitches and Iwaizumi stands up so fast his chair almost clatters over.

 

“Come on, let’s go.”

 

Oikawa watches him go. He can’t feel his legs quite yet.

 

Iwaizumi’s gotten taller, but not taller than Oikawa, obviously. But he’s gotten bigger, the breadth of his shoulders so much wider than Oikawa remembers. He supposes he always remembers the back he used to cling to when Iwaizumi used to piggyback him home after skinned knees or scary bug expeditions or because Oikawa is obviously untitled royalty and deserves servitude, clearly. That’s the Iwa-chan from a childhood of shared days and late nights, not the one he knows now, who gently smiles apologies at girls who confess to him after club, who could carry the pressure of an entire match alone and still have the mind to grin at him, who could grind Oikawa’s heart to dust if he so much as expressed interest in not putting Oikawa first. 

 

He has to remind himself that they’re both different, now. Oikawa has grown up watching the unbendable strength of that back, on the court and off, reliable, dependable, and it makes him want to cling to it now for entirely different reasons. Or maybe not. Maybe the reasons have always been there, and he only understands himself a little better with each year he’s older. 

 

In the hallway, Iwaizumi waits, his traitorous hand pressed to his stomach. The fuck was that, seriously?

 

He’s losing his entire grip on his life. 

 

His entire life apparently being Oikawa, and it’s actually driving him crazy to be left in this best-friends-but-not-quite-right limbo. 

 

He can’t see anything else to do but just bite the bullet and ask Oikawa out.

 

\---

 

Sitting on the floor with his back propped against Oikawa’s bed, with Oikawa only a meter away rolling around on his sheets, Iwaizumi decides to pull the trigger. He can’t think of any place safer than Oikawa’s room, with their childhood memories scattered around them and his head spinning from Oikawa’s scent. 

 

“You know when you dated Yamamoto-san?”

 

Oikawa’s head pops up from where it was buried in another one of those shitty fashion magazines he always buys from the conbini on the sly. Yamamoto Ayumi, class 3A, glasses, plays the bass clarinet in brass band. Confessed to him right after the new year, dated for about 3 weeks. “Ayumi-chan?” He gives Iwaizumi’s profile a curious look, head tilted cutely to the side. So cute. So annoying. “What about her?”

 

“How did you know you wanted to date her?”

 

“Hmm?” Oikawa asks, his questioning hum trailing off on a higher octave. “Iwa-chan, that’s so random! Why are you thinking about her?”

 

“I mean, you didn’t seem like you liked her so much.”

 

Oikawa had been so unaffected after the breakup, all that complaining and whining but no tears, no late-night stretches of silence, none of the ways Iwaizumi knows of how Oikawa really is. It had been so performative, for everyone else to see. 

 

Not that Iwaizumi had asked in detail. He didn’t make much of a point of asking Oikawa about her and Oikawa hadn’t volunteered much information. They still practiced together every day after school, they still walked home together like they always do, with Oikawa being annoying and breathtaking and entirely too warm and present in Iwaizumi’s life, even though he really ought to have paid attention to his girlfriend. And when they inevitably broke up, nothing changed. Just a momentary uptick in bitching and complaining about not being understood and not having enough time in the world to truly make people appreciate the extent of his beauty, fucking Shittykawa, always so up his own ass. 

 

“I guess she confessed to me so I didn’t see a reason to say no,” Oikawa replies, frowning.

 

 _Didn’t see a reason,_ Iwaizumi thinks bitterly. “Isn’t that a cruel thing to do?”

 

Oikawa’s eyes snap wide, shoulder jerking a little in surprise. The blunt cold of it was unexpected. Iwaizumi is straight with him but never so accusatory and unforgiving. So Oikawa says nothing; he doesn’t know what the right answer is.

 

“You’d date anyone who confessed to you, even if you weren’t interested?”

 

“That’s not...” Oikawa says, trailing off. His hands tighten around his magazine. 

 

Well, he supposes Iwaizumi has no reason to believe otherwise, considering the evidence. 

 

“What about someone you’d want to date?” Iwaizumi asks, “what do you do then? I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you ask anyone out.”

 

Why would I, Oikawa wonders miserably, starting to crush the magazine in his grip. _I don’t need to, unless you’re planning on going somewhere away from me._

 

“Iwa-chan, why are you asking?”

 

“Have you ever actually asked anyone out?”

 

“No.” Oikawa pushes himself off of his stomach, inching closer to the edge until he can slide off the bed, thumping down heavily beside his best friend. This is a weird conversation. It’s not just the topic, it’s the strain in Iwaizumi’s voice, the way he won’t look at him.

 

“Then you don’t know what it’s like, having to gather that courage,” Iwaizumi says quietly, fingers clenched around his knees. “You should appreciate it more.”

 

No, you’re wrong, Oikawa thinks, silently watching. I know plenty well what it’s like. I just haven’t gathered enough of it to ask.

 

\---

 

They’re only two weeks out from graduation and Oikawa desperately wants to slam his foot on the brakes. He doesn’t have anything planned because he kept figuring Iwaizumi would ask him to go somewhere as a grad trip, but Iwa-chan’s been really weird with him too, so Oikawa has lost all bearing on his life.

 

“In three weeks, we haven’t even held hands,” Ayumi had said to him on their last day together. “I can’t help but feel like I come second to someone else.”

 

 _Well,_ Oikawa had thought, _only where it counts._

 

He looks across the room at Iwaizumi, where it counts. They’re still having a halfhearted math lesson for whatever reason he cannot fathom, considering everyone’s anxious to just graduate and all the acceptances have already been sorted. There’s no point to school anymore...though he’s grateful it’s more reason to go somewhere Iwaizumi is and silently get to stare at him from across the room. 

 

As if summoned, Iwaizumi looks up at him and their eyes meet. Oikawa’s stomach shoots into the back of his throat and he wonders how miserable he must look, how distraught, because Iwaizumi’s mouth presses in an uneven line, nearly a frown, and then he looks away. 

 

\---

 

So much for biting the bullet. Iwaizumi has the distinct impression he pulled the trigger with the gun pointed the wrong way and shot himself in the face. 

 

He’d gotten through all the awkwardness of _talking_ about asking Oikawa out, even through the suspect line of questioning of what Oikawa likes to do to ask people out, and somehow ended up half-lecturing him. 

 

Coward. He’s a coward. He’s faced Shiratorizawa head-on in battle without blinking twice, he’s punched Oikawa in the head in front of his own mom, but nothing has ever scared him enough to make him back out before. So much for all that conviction. 

 

Iwaizumi’s grip tightens around his pencil, jaw clenched. He’s now also guilty of having sent Oikawa on a trip of confusion and anxiety, and that isn’t very fair of him.

 

As soon as class is dismissed, Iwaizumi shoves his books into his bag, anxious to talk to Oikawa, but Oikawa startles the hell out of him by suddenly appearing beside him before he can even get up.

 

“Jesus Christ, did you even wait for class to finish?” Iwaizumi asks, hand defensively held to his chest. 

 

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa says, forced lightness in his voice. But just one look at his face and Iwaizumi knows, he knows too well the depths of him, the intricacies and rhythms of his breaths and sighs and laughs, and he couldn’t forget if he wanted to. It’s so uniquely exquisite, being in love with someone. They come before everything else, even thoughts, even knowledge, a reflex of his biology.

 

“Oikawa.” Iwaizumi swallows, guiltier than ever. “Listen, the other day--”

 

“Do you want to go grab dinner after school today?” Oikawa interrupts, talking right over him, a hand on the back of his neck. “Um, I was thinking that place you like by the station? If you have time.”

 

Iwaizumi stares at him, lips parted. Gobsmacked. “Uh, yeah, what?” he asks, “What the hell, Trashkawa? Like I ever not have time for you?”

 

Oh shit. He hadn’t meant to say the last bit. Iwaizumi flushes deep pink but Oikawa is beaming at him, radiant with beauty as he always is, so Iwaizumi relaxes and lets it go.

 

\---

 

“I am so sure you didn’t want to order five servings of agedashi tofu,” Iwaizumi says blankly, pinching Oikawa’s cheek. 

 

“I really did want some!” Oikawa continues to exclaim, laughing bright and clear, completely turned toward him even though they’re sitting side to side.

 

Iwaizumi can’t help but smile back, and he puts his other hand on Oikawa’s face too, meaning to pinch the other cheek. He ends up cupping his face though, just holding him and looking at him, the bright shine of Oikawa’s eyes, the softness of his mouth, free of any tension. Oikawa’s laughter fades and then he’s staring right back at him, none of the usual flustered panic. 

 

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, deeper than he himself recognizes. In his peripheral vision, he sees Oikawa’s hands clench into fists. “Do you think--”

 

“Food’s ready, boys! Want anything else?”

 

Oikawa jerks back at the same time as Iwaizumi drops his hands and they both heave a sigh, silently turning to their food. Timing, Iwaizumi thinks. Love is timing.

 

Ah, he’s such an unlucky sap. Oikawa is too much supernova and Iwaizumi’s just an unfortunate rock, caught in the rush of his orbit. 

 

\---

 

“Iwa-chan, do you have time after school today? I was hoping--”

 

“Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi says, tugging on a lock of his hair. “I told you to stop asking, I always have time.”

 

Oikawa sighs through his smile, ignoring the way Hanamaki is outright laughing and making fun of him right now. 

 

They’re only a week out from graduation. There are a thousand things to do, like check how long it takes to get from his dorm in Tokyo to Iwaizumi’s, but Oikawa is too preoccupied. He’s been asking Iwaizumi to go out with him every single day this past week, increasingly panicked about getting his time and attention now that they’re nearing the end of this season of their lives. The talk they had had about asking people out has been sitting wrong in his brain, spurning his sense of urgency. Oikawa had been perfectly content to let things lie between them with some naive belief that the status quo would hold over for the rest of their lives. As long as Iwaizumi was happy to put him first, choose him above all else, what else did he need to say?

 

Clearly, Iwaizumi has had other thoughts on his mind. Oikawa is so careful about knowing exactly what his best friend thinks, feels, wants--how did he fuck up and miss this huge thing that’s clearly been upsetting Iwaizumi more than he’s admitting? Luckily, Iwaizumi’s agreed every single time to go out, and Oikawa desperately wants to ask him to be something more, but the timing is never right. 

 

He can’t let them go off to Tokyo like this. Surrounded by so many new people, and with the strain of a new life and wider circles of friends and people Oikawa can’t watch over every moment of Iwaizumi’s life, he’s scared someone will sneak past under his nose.

 

Hanamaki had accused him of jealousy and Oikawa had only shrugged. Yeah, and?

 

What’s his is his. Oikawa has fought, guarded, obsessed for everything he has; none of it was ever given to him. There’s a reason he wears a 1 on his back. 

 

At the movies, Oikawa buys them both an extra large bucket of popcorn to share, intent on accidentally on purpose brushing their hands together a few times. He places the bucket between them and starts shoving popcorn in his mouth, which is apparently annoying because Iwaizumi only makes it five minutes before he takes the bucket away and sets it out of Oikawa’s reach.

 

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa whines under his breath, then stops, suddenly aware that they’re very close, in the dark, with no eyes on them. Iwaizumi’s hand burns where it’s covering his own on their shared armrest, and Iwaizumi’s fingertips curl around to press into the center of Oikawa’s palm. When had that happened?

 

“Oikawa,” Iwaizumi says, his eyes bright even in the dark. Oikawa swallows a shallow sip of breath, spine stiff, because yes, _yes._ “I’ve been wanting to say this to you for--”

 

“Excuse me, is this yours?” A voice whisper-hisses at them, and Iwaizumi’s face goes through an entire exercise in rage-repression before he turns around. 

 

“Oh, sorry about that,” he says, taking the bucket of popcorn back. 

 

“Are you kidding me!?” Oikawa demands, shrill even in his whispers. The girl sits down next to Iwaizumi with her friend and Oikawa wants to lunge over and shove them into a cannon to blast into space. “Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan,” he whispers furiously, dragging Iwaizumi close with a hand twisted in the front of Iwaizumi’s uniform, “the entire theater is practically empty!! Why is she sitting next to you?”

 

Iwaizumi slowly turns to him with a smirk that makes Oikawa’s thighs clench. “Maybe you’re not the only good looking one here,” he whispers back, just joking, but Oikawa immediately lets him go, staring into his lap with a burning face. 

 

Iwaizumi just called him good looking. Well, it’s not really the first time. But the _way_ he had said it, the heat in his eyes, voice as smooth as melting chocolate, just as delicious. Oikawa tries to suppress the shiver that snakes up his spine. Damn it. How does Iwaizumi not realize how tragically attractive he is, and how much he drives Oikawa insane?

 

\---

 

“Iwa-chan, do--”

 

“Where do you want to go?” Iwaizumi asks, exasperated and laughing. He reaches out to pull down the hem of Oikawa’s sweater vest where it’s curled up from sitting, rolling his eyes when Hanamaki starts generously coughing the word _married!_ in their direction. 

 

They’re only two days out from graduation. Oikawa is going to lose his mind at the untimely distractions every time he and Iwaizumi go out. 

 

To be fair, he knows what Iwaizumi wants to say to him. Oikawa’s waited a literal lifetime for the words, he spends his day to day on the belief that they’re silently spoken between them with every meeting; how could he _not_ know? He’s just realized that he doesn’t have the luxury of time to wait for them to be spoken aloud anymore, and despite his best efforts to organically speed things along, other people keep getting in the way! 

 

Love is all about timing. It always comes down to it. 

 

They end up at karaoke on top of the McDonald’s next to the station. Oikawa’s not a big fan of karaoke in particular but karaoke necessitates a _private_ room, which means no distractions, which means he can make out with Iwaizumi all he wants to if the tides happen to turn that way…

 

“Stop making that face, it’s really creepy,” Iwaizumi tells him, paying for their karaoke time. 

 

If this doesn’t work, Oikawa is going to drown himself in his bath. He’s run out of ideas for excuses to go out.

 

Iwaizumi punches in some random songs into the machine, also clearly distracted, and Oikawa is sitting on the literal edge of the booth, waiting for Iwaizumi to come sit back down beside him. 

 

“Kind of cold, isn’t it?” Oikawa asks, voice irregularly high-pitched. He clears his throat, hoping Iwaizumi can’t see how bad he’s sweating. “Iwa-chan, aren’t you cold? This winter is going on forever, sheesh...”

 

Iwaizumi arches an eyebrow at him, coming to sit right up against him, thigh to thigh and hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder. Strangely, it makes Oikawa relax, and he slumps toward him, one hand ending up on Iwaizumi’s thigh and his chin coming to rest on Iwaizumi’s shoulder.

 

“Still cold?” Iwaizumi asks, eyes full of teasing mirth. Oikawa blushes but he laughs, tilting his head forward even more, until he’s looking up at him through his eyelashes again, fingers digging gently into Iwaizumi’s thigh. 

 

They’re not even making a pretense at platonic friendship anymore. The non-distance between them isn’t abnormal, but that speaks even louder to how long they’ve been like this, how much worse it is in private, away from curious eyes. Oikawa is a goddamn flirt and dates far too indiscriminately but Iwaizumi finds himself forgiving it every time, maybe because deep down, he knows how much Oikawa doesn’t care. Which makes him a gigantic asshole. But Oikawa has never looked to anyone else, has never looked away from him, and Iwaizumi has no shame in admitting he’s in love with a selfish, narcissistic, careless, pretty-boy asshole.

 

“Do...do you have something to ask me?” Oikawa ventures, cheeks pink. 

 

Iwaizumi scoffs quietly, letting Oikawa pull at his hand until he’s got their fingers laced. “Why do you think I’m going to say something? Why don’t you say something?”

 

“Iwa-chan...” Oikawa whines, nervous. He presses closer out of habit, even though there is no closer; he’s about to literally be in Iwaizumi’s lap. “I’m the setter, you know? You’re the ace! I start things, I set up, and you’re supposed to follow through and finish them, see?”

 

“So...” Iwaizumi says, grinning at the stormy frustration accompanying Oikawa’s pout. “What are you saying you started, exactly?”

 

“I’ve asked you out for two weeks solid!!” Oikawa exclaims, squeezing Iwaizumi’s hand, heart thudding painfully loud in his ears. Iwaizumi’s holding so tight to his hand, like he’s trying to tie him to earth. It won’t work, though, Oikawa will float off into space if he wants.

 

“Yeah, I guess you have,” Iwaizumi grants him. He takes a deep breath before ducking in, stubbornly and embarrassingly intent on not breaking eye contact. He can feel Oikawa’s shallow breaths on his lips. “But you know, I think I’m the one who actually started everything.”

 

Oikawa’s eyes flicker between his own and his lips and Iwaizumi has never so badly wanted to kiss him. His best friend of his entire life, the worst frustration and kindest comfort he’s ever known. Oikawa, who has never not been there, who has never turned to anyone else. Oikawa, with the bleeding big heart he tries to hide, who is actually very gentle, who can be shy and uncertain when people aren’t looking, who tries to consider everyone else’s happiness before his own, even though no one knows to appreciate it. Oikawa, who secretly used to hold Iwaizumi’s hand under the blankets at sleepovers when he thought Iwaizumi was already asleep, up until they were 16. Oikawa, who dates almost anyone who confesses to him eagerly enough, even though he hadn’t spoken to Iwaizumi for three entire days in their first year of high school, when he had witnessed a girl confessing to Iwaizumi after club. And it had taken Iwaizumi’s loud, insistent informing him of no, he hadn’t accepted, really, that Oikawa had lost the tension to his eyes and mouth, and how shaken he’d sounded when he laughed back then.

 

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I loved you first,” Iwaizumi says, half to himself, and Oikawa lunges at him, arms around his neck and mouth pressed to his mouth, tackling him horizontal into the karaoke booth. 

 

There. That’s his ace. 120 kilometers an hour, block-free, no-touch spike; Iwaizumi definitely followed through with this one. Oikawa doesn’t know how he’ll ever pick himself up off the floor or come land back down on earth. 

 

“Is that...is that Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘I really like you’ playing? Oh my god, Iwa-chan--”

 

Iwaizumi groans and pulls Oikawa back down to shut him up with kisses.

 

\---

 

Halfway through taking photos, signing yearbooks, and avoiding Makki so he can’t draw any more hearts around Iwaizumi’s photo in Oikawa’s yearbook, Oikawa abandons the crowd of people descended upon him to find his best friend. 

 

He doesn’t even know how Iwaizumi keeps getting separated from him today. At first it was because they had so many photos to take with so many different groups of people, and then their parents’ friends wanted photos, and then their teachers wanted photos and to give them pep talks, and now Oikawa doesn’t even know if Iwaizumi is still on the same floor as him. He has a mission, though, so he has to find him. 

 

“Oikawa-senpai!” A girl calls out to him, and Oikawa starts to run, waving apologetically in her direction. 

 

It happens six more times before he finally spots Iwaizumi standing in the garden, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head, smiling that apologetic smile to the pretty girl in front of him. 

 

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa says, though it comes out a lot sharper than he’d intended. 

 

“It’s okay, we all knew,” the girl is saying, and Oikawa plasters himself to Iwaizumi’s side, refusing to be shoved away.

 

“Knew what?”

 

She darts a look at him, turning red. “Iwaizumi-senpai is dating you.”

 

“Yes,” Oikawa says, sure and proud, though confused that she knows. They hadn’t told anyone yet. 

 

She sighs, assessing them like she’s drawing mental pictures, then bows and runs back to school, leaving Oikawa to muse over it. “What did she want?” he asks, hoping to keep the question as casual as possible. 

 

“Idiot,” Iwaizumi says, wrapping an arm around his waist. Iwaizumi pulls him in, angles their hips together and kisses him, fingers gently cupping his chin. With a shaking sigh, Oikawa melts into him, smiling helplessly at the way Iwaizumi’s fingertips find the curls at the back of his neck, trailing and tickling him. He leans into the touch as far as he’s leaning into Iwaizumi’s embrace, never quite close enough.

 

“But really, what did she want?” Oikawa asks after a respectable two minutes of keeping it together. 

 

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and rips off the second button of his uniform to drop in Oikawa’s blazer pocket. “There, that’s what she wanted.”

 

Oikawa is stunned silent for just a moment. Then he rips off all the buttons on his blazer altogether, laughing and chasing Iwaizumi around the garden to try and shove all of them in Iwaizumi’s pockets.

 

\---

**Author's Note:**

> Okay i KNOW seijou doesn’t have the traditional japanese uniform and instead have stylish modern (white?? on high school kids??? designer-san????) blazers BUT JUST LET ME HAVE THIS ONE. 
> 
> For your reference, copied from wikipedia: “The second button from the top of a male's uniform is often given away to a female he is in love with, and is considered a way of confession. The second button is the one closest to the heart and is said to contain the emotions from all three years attendance at the school”
> 
> Find me [@yuxisushi](https://twitter.com/yuxisushi) :)


End file.
